Editorial Note: The death toll is now 25
Our Coalition Government hasn’t got a lot to choose from when it comes to appointing some of them to Ministerial positions. The situation has been made even worse by some of the original selections having to be fired for sundry reasons. Current Health Minister (and for how long, we wonder), Hipkins, is a dazzling manifestation of that paucity of intelligence and integrity.
On September 10th, he appeared on New Zealand television screens, uninvited, and ranted at Jacinda Ardern’s “team of 5 million”. He accused some unknown members of the team of spreading misinformation. He reminded us, with a straight face, nay, a stern face, that to overcome the spread of misinformation, we needed to “watch the TV news”. That’s like telling us to listen to “Creepy Joe Biden” to learn the truth about President Trump.
He then went on to make a point that demonstrated his lack either of intelligence or of integrity, perhaps both. He exclaimed that “the virus is very, very deadly!” Not just deadly; not just very deadly; no, very, very deadly.
Well, there have been and still are some illnesses/diseases/viruses that are very, very deadly – Ebola, Marburg virus, Rabies, H.I.V. (AIDS) and Dengue fever but none of them is COVID-19.
According to the Worldometer, New Zealand has had 1,797 identified cases of COVID-19. 24 of those have died. That’s a mortality rate of 1·3% of the identified cases, and all of those deaths have been of older persons (say, 65yo+) with co-morbidities.
That’s very, very deadly?
In pre-COVID-19 2006, for example, how many 65yo+ died from the flu in New Zealand? The answer is 400. Yes, 400, in just one pre-COVID-19 year in New Zealand.
But 24 have died from Covid-19 in eight months and according to Chris Hipkins that makes it “very, very deadly”. Let’s extrapolate that out to 12 months – 24/8*12 = 36.
36 COVID-19 deaths versus 400 flu deaths.
Strangely no one is telling the team of 5 million that the flu is “very, very deadly”. Why on earth not?
But, hey, the Coalition Government will cry, our lockdown is what’s stopped the predicted 80,000 deaths. Does anyone feel a Tui advert coming on here? Don’t tell anyone that those 24 deaths in New Zealand have been with Covid-19 not necessarily from Covid-19.
Jacinda Ardern has told us that this is a COVID election. It’s difficult to think of a more cynical approach to what is probably the most important general election in New Zealand for a very long time.
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